An Amazing Opportunity

I know that I should have blogged about this almost 2 weeks ago, but it had been a really crazy week that week. On February 2nd I got to have one of the most amazing opportunities anyone gets to take part in during their lifen the birth of a child (not my own). At 9:30am on the 2nd I took my good friend Chisti, who was 41+4 weeks, to Balboa to do a labor check. When we went in we were hoping for enough progress to keep her there, but the chance of that happening was not good considering the 2 weeks of checks before that. When the midwife came in and checked her she was at 3-4 25% which wasn't much progress since Friday and it broke poor Christi's heart thinking she would have to go another week like this. The midwife went out and pleed Christi's case and came back in about 3 minutes later (probably felt like 30 to poor Christi) and told us "lets get you in a room you're staying." Apparently the in-charge Dr really felt sorry for her and let the midwife get this show on the road. They started the pitocin at about 1030 and things were on their way. We had a great time laughing and joking, especially when Christi was sitting on the bed through contractions on Danielle's phone trying to access myspace to update it. The nurse learned very quickly that Danielle and I are a bunch of goofballs especially when she'd come in to up the pitocin. We kept telling her "put it at 55" even when it was only at 20. It was a great day and things progressed nicely throughout the day and into the evening. They broke Christi's water with "the hook" which made us ALL laugh because, if you've never seen the hook, it looks like a crochet hook and Christi was threatening all week to use a crochet hook on herself to get him out. Christi did AMAZING breathing through all the contractions and with the support of Danielle and I made it to about 8cm before even thinking twice about an epidural. Once it was time to push Christi was all business and that little "runt" was out in about 6-7 pushes. Eli Austin-Wayne Alexander was born at 920 pm (or 2120) weighing in at a "small" 9lbs 8.9oz and 21 inches long. CONGRATULATIONS Christi and thanks so much for letting me be a part of such a great moment in your life.